


From The Shadows

by vesuviannights



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:55:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21544123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vesuviannights/pseuds/vesuviannights
Summary: As Julian Devorak hurries home from a late night in his office, a shadow lurks atop the roof, waiting to pounce.
Relationships: Julian Devorak/Alice, Julian/Alice, Julian/Apprentice
Kudos: 30





	From The Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> So as part of an exchange with @kidgrimm on Tumblr, I was given the opportunity to write some Alice x Julian! Alice is their apprentice who I have absolutely ADORED since I don't even know when, and I highly recommend you all go over and checkout the Alice/Julian art and comics because they will make you uwu real hard.

Alice hadn’t needed to wait long for her prey to arrive. 

Despite the late hour and the dedication to his craft, all it had taken was a single suggestive note and thirteen minutes for Julian’s long form to become visible on the horizon. 

He’s ambling, a light jog that is always a little awkward for his long limbs and is now only added to by his rush, his desperation to get home and see her, to collect on what she had offered him. 

_Do you want to play?_

From her perch atop the roof, she can see him growing closer. When he’s only a few houses away, she can make out the details: gaze a little wide, face a little flushed. He hasn’t spotted her, too focused on their hour, on his mission, a look of pure determination on his face as he approaches the front—

—and proceeds to run face-first into the door he clearly assumed was unlocked.

He goes down on his bony ass with a surprised noise, hand to his forehead. Somehow, she manages to stifle her laughter, manages not to break down into one of her trademark wheezing fits. 

She’s waited here too long to ruin the game with her own amusement.

Hand to her mouth, she watches from her shadowed perch as Julian stands and dusts himself off. There’s a red mark on his forehead from where he’s run into the oak door, but he already seems to have forgotten the injury.

“Alice?” He calls, a hopeful lilt to his voice. “…dearest?”

Of course there’s no answer. A quiet whine sounds from somewhere in Julian’s chest, and it’s soon joined by a barely-there pout when he knocks—with no answer again.

Several quiet moments pass, undercut by Julian’s shuffling boots. 

“I wanted to play,” he murmurs finally. The shaking, dejected sigh he releases along with it is almost enough to make Alice want to climb down from her roof perch and latch onto him.

_Almost._

When he turns away to face the street, she takes the chance to slink across the roof and over the ledge, straight into the side window she had left open. 

A second later, she has opened the door and slipped back into the shadows of the room.

At the creak of the door, Julian makes a surprised noise. His eyebrows lift, a hint of worry flashing in his gaze—and then he’s grinning, an almost wicked and devious look as he steps up to the door and eyes the seemingly empty room.

“Oh _dear_ ,” he calls. “An empty an unattended house—whatever shall I do?”

He has to duck a little to enter, like always, his steps long and slow and exaggerated as he ‘creeps’ in. His lips are still twisted into that same grin, and she’d be a damned liar if she said hers hadn’t been the same way since the moment he had arrived home.

Tucking his hands behind his back, Julian steps up to their dining table before leaning down to peer under it.

He tuts when he finds nothing, then straightens to eye the rest of the room, his eyes lingering on the shadows longer than the objects.

“Come out, come out wherever you are…” He checks a curtain, tuts yet again. “My love, I thought you said you wanted to play?”

He disappears into his little office for a few moments. She listens as his footsteps shuffle around the room, as objects and curtains shift. Every movement is part of their game, one he has gladly agreed to without even knowing what is awaiting him at its conclusion.

When she hears him open the closet in the office, she takes her next chance to move, slinking up the staircase with careful and quiet steps. When she reaches the top, she raps her fingers three times against the wood of the rail.

His response is immediate. She hears him stumble and trip over something in his haste, and a quiet string of curses follow, but she’s hidden again by the time he reaches the foot of the stairs, a new and even more wicked grin splitting his features.

He begins up the stairs, his steps now a little more hurried. His thoughts have clearly been a little filthy during the game because she can see the very prominent outline of his cock against his pants. 

He adjusts it when he gets to the top of the stairs, and then—as though knowing she’s somewhere very close and watching—he tugs at the hem of his shirt to pull it from his pants, flexing his arms and chest as he pulls it over his head.

Somehow—she isn’t really sure how—Alice still manages not to make a noise, though she is very dazed for a few moments at the sight of his bare chest.

Julian, still stretching his limbs, takes the chance to taunt her a little.

“Was this your idea of getting me home when I was working too late?” He asks, a low purr in his chest. “Because I like it. I like it very much.”

He goes into another room, there’s less shuffling this time. She hears a zipper, and a quiet little groan, and when he emerges, his cock is in his hand, stroking it in long and slow and torturous movements.

And it’s this that finally breaks her.

A quiet little noise, something akin to a whine, sounds from her throat.

He freezes.

She freezes.

And she swears that his eyes dart, just for a fraction of a moment, to the exact shadow she is hiding in. That his lips quirk just a little before he turns away and moves forward in his search.

Heart beating rapidly, and other parts of her a little more than aching, she takes her chance at escape and slips out of her shadow and toward the bedroom.

She makes it in when she hears a loud crash, and several loud curses, and she turns and moves into the light to find Julian on the floor, pants around his ankles, limbs askew.

And that’s when the last straw breaks, and she starts laughing.

Within moments she has completely given everything away. She is bent over and wheezing over his awkwardly positioned body, the box of medical journals he himself had left in the hallway the cause of his fall, alongside his clearly terrible decision to try and undress himself while moving—as if he didn’t even remember exactly how long or awkward his limbs were when he was horny. 

Or just existing.

With a soft groan, he rolls onto his back. “Won’t you help me up, my love?”

She keeps wheezing, tears stinging her eyes, one hand to the wall for support with the other clutching at her stomach and the quickly-growing pains in her abdominal muscles from laughing too hard, too quickly, with no breath.

She barely hears the growl from the impatient doctor beneath her, and then she’s wide-eyed as he grips her wrist and pulls her down on top of him. She’s against his chest with an oof, and then she’s on the floor beneath him, his forehead pressed into hers as the last of her laughs die off.

“Well,” Julian murmurs, a light pout to his voice. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“I wanted to play. You were taking too long.”

“Mmmm, clearly. But I was speaking of the part where you laughed about my rather ungraceful fall.”

Before he has even finished speaking she’s grinning again. A few laughs erupt from her chest, and just to stop her from going down that path again he nuzzles into her jaw, pressing a slow and open-mouthed kiss to her neck

She sighs, positively melting beneath him, all smiles and grabby hands as she takes hold of his arm and snakes a hand around his back.

His lips very quickly come to her chest, to the exposed cleavage he loves so much. She knows he would spend hours there if she let him, just kissing and nuzzling and burying his face.

And she does let him go at it for a little while, so happy that he’s home and warm and hers.

Until she feels it stirring in her gut, the desire for more, a little bit of impatience, and they both know she doesn’t last long once she wants something.

With a barely-there sigh she tilts her hips up toward his, and in response he gives a quiet noise, lifting his flushed and dazed face from her chest.

It only takes him a moment to read her—the slight flush to her own cheekbones, the lip between her teeth—before he cocks an eyebrow, a wicked glint to his eye.

“As you wish, my love.”

He kicks his pants off from around his ankles and stands in one smooth movement, taking her with him in the cradle of his arms. She squeals as he walks them to the bedroom, a mere three feet away, and tosses her onto the bed before jumping on after her.

He purrs quietly, shoulders rolling dramatically with the movement. “Now that I’ve finally found you—”

“But you didn’t find me. I—”

“ _Now that I’ve found you_ —what delightful gift do we have here?”

She rolls her eyes and lets him pull at her clothes with his teeth, his hands finding bare skin wherever he can, moving down—whining a little when he moves past her chest—until he is settled between her legs.

He keeps his gaze locked on hers as he nudges the fabric of her clothes aside with his nose and hands, until his teeth graze over her undergarments. 

She shivers, and it quickly becomes a laugh when his hair tickles at the inside of her thigh.

“J- _Julian_ —!”

“If you start laughing now, you’ll ruin everything.”

“Then stop tickling me.”

“As you wish.”

He pushes his hair out of his face, as if _that_ is really going to help anything, before finally pressing a kiss between her legs, right to the warmth of her sex.

And she melts instantly, all flushed cheeks and rolling hips, and she can barely keep herself propped up on her hands to watch him as he plays with her so innocently.

“Spread your legs for me, darling,” he asks.

She tucks her hands under her knees and parts her thighs, the stretch of them giving him more than enough room to settle his wide shoulders in.

Once he is settled in, a shadow crosses his features, one that dulls the sparkle in his eyes just a little, that turn the corners of his lips down even as he lingers so close to his second favourite part of her body.

“I have been terrible lately, haven’t I?” He murmurs. “Working so much. Not being here to love you.”

“You can’t help that people get sick.”

“You’re right, I can’t,” he concedes quietly. He turns his head to nuzzle into her thigh, closing his eyes as he inhales the scent of her, takes in the softness of her skin as though it could ease every problem he might ever have. “But I can certainly spend this time making it up to you, don’t you think?”

She nods at his words, at the promise they hold, so eager and ready to be rewarded for her patience—even knowing that sending him such a tempting note and teasing him once he came was hardly patient.

And so with her enthusiastic nodding, and the tightened grip of her hand in his hair, and the sight of her parted lips and flushed cheeks and heaving chest, Julian descends on her with a delighted growl.


End file.
